The
following is a compilation of many ideas, very few of which are my own original
thoughts. I am much indebted to the teaching of some wonderful priests on such
spiritual mysteries & realities.
I personally like to call Purgatory, ‘God’s Mercy
in Action’. Purgatory is one of God’s greatest merciful gifts. The Church
teaches that “those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly
purified live forever with Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 1023).
So there are two conditions for our Heavenly residence… that we are 1) in God’s
grace & friendship and 2) that we are perfectly purified. How many of those
who die in God’s grace & friendship will also be ‘perfectly purified’? That means freedom from all
attachment to sin, from all inordinate desires, relationships, habits,
emotions, etc. I’m thinking you are thinking what I’m thinking - I don’t know
if I even know anyone that fits all that
criteria! Fortunately, our all-knowing and all-merciful God knows this. He
knows that while many of us will die as His loving friends, very few of us will
be ‘perfectly purified’ here on earth. Thus, He created Purgatory - the place
in which those “who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly
purified” (CCC #1030) go to become worthy of God’s Kingdom; to “achieve the
holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC #1030). He loves us and
desires us so much that even if we die imperfect, but sincerely love Him, He
still wants us. So He created a place where we can be made ready, rather than be separated from Him - talk about love
& mercy!
This being said… if we really contemplate our lives
and the ways - not where we commit sin deliberately cutting ourselves off from
God - but the ways that our lives are disordered in a way that prevents us from
loving God as He should be loved, and even as we desire to love Him, we can see
how much purification needs to be done to be worthy of Heaven. Even those who live
their lives in way that only exudes holiness, have things to deal with. We all
have inordinate desires and attachments. We say that we love God above all
things, but oftentimes, we really don’t. There are other things, people, and
activities that we frequently put before God. Thus the proper order
becomes out of order. God - at least for that moment - isn’t in the #1
spot, at the top of the list. In all things, He ALWAYS needs to be FIRST; all
the time. Being perfectly purified means that we desire nothing else than to
love God and be united to Him. This doesn’t mean that we spend the rest of our
lives in the chapel and don’t see or talk to anyone else or do anything else,
but that in all things, we first love God and live so as to love Him and honor
Him - always.
Now, God does give us the grace to work out at
least some of our purification here, so as to spend less time separated from Him
in Purgatory. The question is, are we going to be open & cooperate with
this grace here & now, or not? He often uses suffering in our lives to help
purify us, to make us humble, to make us more dependent on Him. If we see
suffering as the redemptive and sanctifying gift that it is and cooperate with
it, God can work in us through it. Much of the time, there are still at least
some of those interior strongholds, struggles, attachments, etc. that are
keeping us from fully loving God. In order to deal with all of these, we have
to let Him in and be willing to go through the process of detaching and
re-ordering our interior, purifying our love for God. The benefit of working
out our disordered-ness here vs. in Purgatory, is that it helps us to draw nearer
to God and to grow in our love for Him so that we can, in this life, get closer
to loving Him as He should be loved. Isn’t this the goal of the Christian life?
The greatest commandment? To love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, & strength? (Mark 12:30)
To allow the Lord to begin purifying us here takes
trust in Him. It’s hard to relinquish control and let Him take over and strip
us of those things that keep us from deeper communion with Him. But it’s worth
it. If you are having a hard time even wanting to let go, to detach &
reorder your life, be patient. It’s okay. We are all a work-in-progress. None
of us perfectly trusts Him or is perfectly surrendered, so don’t think you’re
the only one struggling. Just ask God to give you the grace & He will give
it to you when you are ready. Just take one step at a time. He will bring us
healing when it’s the right time and when we are ready. Jesus asks each of us
the same question that He asks the paralytic in the Gospel…. “Do you want to be
made well?” (John 5:6) Do you want to be healed, to be made whole, to be freed?
Why would Jesus even ask such a seemingly silly question!? Doesn’t everyone
want to be healed? Yes, and no. Jesus asks this question because it means, ‘if
I heal you, if I make you well, if I make you whole, your life will be
drastically different. Everything will change. Are you okay with this? Do you
trust Me?’ He will not force Himself on us. He is the perfect gentleman. He
offers us His arm, and we have the choice to link ours with His or not. He
doesn’t grab it. The choice is up to us. He won’t intervene if we don’t want to
Him to intervene. And oftentimes, we are so attached to the way things are
right now and afraid of the changes that would come if we let Him in to purify
us, that we don’t want to be made well. We are miserable, yet are under this
ridiculous illusion that we are too comfortable in our misery to want to be
changed!
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go
through this life as a friend of God and dying in His grace without at least trying to love Him to the capacity that
He created me to love Him. Thus, whatever Purgatory time we can shave off here
on earth, we should want to do it! The more we work out our salvation here, the
less time we have to spend separated from God after our death and we get to
Heaven quicker.
We should desire to be able to love God to the
degree that He created us to love Him. But, we can’t love God as He ought to be
loved if we are holding onto other things, people, even emotions; they all have
a hold on us. How can we open our arms to give & receive the Lord’s love,
if we are bound by our own emotions and desires as if we were in a straight
jacket?
“Do you want to be well?” It can - and often does - take time to
answer that question. It takes ups & downs, feelings of hopelessness and
helplessness. We usually have to get to a rock-bottom place before we are ready
to be lifted up. I know for me personally, it has taken me years of agony to
tell Jesus (very recently), through a stream of tears, “Yes, Jesus. I really do
want to be well.” Because I got tired of feeling like I woke up every day just
to get the life sucked out of me; tired not loving God as He should be loved
and doing nothing about it. I finally cried out - despite the fear of change,
willing to let change happen - wanting to be made well, tired of the interior
misery day after day. I know there will be more times and circumstances that He
will ask me the question again, and I hope I can answer ‘yes’ more promptly,
but the humanity in me will undoubtedly engage in a struggle until I have the
grace to realize that there is nothing more that I want than for Jesus to make
me well.